Wilbert Rideau
| Wilbert Rideau | |
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| Born | February 13, 1942 |
Wilbert Rideau (born February 13, 1942) is a convicted killer and former death row inmate from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who became an author and award-winning journalist while in prison. Rideau was convicted of first-degree murder in the course of a bank robbery in 1961 and sentenced to death. After the United States Supreme Court ruled that states had to rework their death penalty statutes because of constitutional concerns, the Louisiana Court judicially amended his sentence in 1972 to life in prison. During his 12 years in isolation on Death Row, he began to educate himself, reading numerous books, a practice he continued.
After re-entering the general prison population, from 1975 Rideau served for more than 20 years as editor of The Angolite, the magazine written and published by prisoners at Louisiana State Prison (Angola); he was the first African-American editor of any prison newspaper in the United States. Under his leadership, the magazine won the George Polk Award and Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for its reporting, and it was nominated for others.
Rideau appealed his case four times. The United States Supreme Court and lower courts ordered a total of three new trials, the first by the USSC because of adverse pre-trial publicity. He was convicted again of murder two more times, in 1964 and 1970, each time by all-male, all-white juries. He served more than 40 years in the State Penitentiary; parole was never approved. In 2005 Rideau was tried a fourth time and unanimously convicted by the jury of the lesser charge of manslaughter; they did not believe he had planned the killing. Rideau was sentenced to the maximum of 21 years; as he had already served nearly 44 years, he was freed.
A Life magazine article in March 1993 referred to Rideau as "the most rehabilitated prisoner in America." He has written several books and edited compilations of articles. He participated in making two documentaries, including The Farm: Angola, USA (1998), about the lives of six men at Angola, including him. It was drawn from his Life Sentences (1992) and much was filmed at the prison.
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